The Black Fox
by FalconFate
Summary: What if James Buchanan Barnes wasn't the only one to be frozen and recovered for use as an assassin? Now, with Steve searching for his friend with Sam tagging along behind, and the Soldier hiding both from them and HYDRA, will the once-assassin realize the truth and rejoin his old friend—before they're all killed by a Black Fox?
1. Chapter 1

**I own virtually nothing but some OCs and the Fox. The rest all goes to Stan Lee.**

**And yes, I've somehow gotten into Marvel again.**

"What do you want?"

_"To deliver a message." _The voice on the other end of the phone was like that of any normal man with a bad smoking habit, but the oily undertones beneath those four words made the man who had answered the cell shiver. _"We want the package returned."_

"Why?" the man asked harshly. "More than ninety percent of our success has been because of your little _gift_. Why the hell would I give that up?"

_"No arguments. I expect it secured, frozen and completely undamaged in three days. No exceptions. __Or we will destroy you." _The call ended there.

The man swore vehemently, then threw the cell back on the table. Well then.

* * *

_Blissful summers._

_Harsh winters._

_Numbness._

_Pain._

_"Till the end of the line…"_

_Pah. _

The man in the gray hoodie and baseball cap glared at nothing. Half-memoried swirled through his head, sometimes ringing with the phantom pains in the amputated-then-replaced-with-a-metal-arm left shoulder, sometimes corresponding with the rare moments he thought about It.

It.

His mission.

The one mission he couldn't complete.

The Winter Soldier hissed. He'd been blocking the thought of that impertinent Captain as well as he could, but his walls were crumbling, and he somehow knew that it wouldn't be long before he either let himself be found, whether by HYDRA or Him, or sought out one or the other himself.

Doubtful he would do the latter anyway, but who knew.

Now, if the employees at this run-down diner agreed to keep their mouths shut, he might just get a better meal than scrounging in the fenlands…

…scrounging in the Dumpster.

* * *

HYDRA agent Rick Lee glanced around nervously.

Then immediately admonished himself and stood stiffly. Showing fear was _not _a HYDRA-acceptable habit. Especially when dealing with A.I.M., and the little present the Advanced Idea Mechanics were returning.

Lee had never seen the Fox in person, but had heard the rumors. And if _any_ of them were true… well, for once he was glad to be with HYDRA and not S.H.I.E.L.D. or the Avengers.

Lee and his partner, Maverick, waited for three hours. Then, from overhead, they heard the sound of chopper blades. Lee looked up in time to see a searchlight from a (probably stolen) Mi 26 as the large rotorcraft descended for landing. He and Maverick stepped back as it did so, approaching once the blades had slowed reasonably.

"You got the package?" Lee shouted at the pilot, who had just disembarked.

The man grimaced. "Yeah, she's in the back. Say, know why you need 'er again? Damned useful, she's been."

Lee shrugged, then said over the wind "I know as much as you do, but it's because of the skills ingrained into the Fox that we need her. I've been hearing that the frontlines have need of another assassin after the fiasco in D.C.—I'll assume you've heard about it?" At the pilot's nod, he continued, "Somehow the Soldier went haywire. We haven't been able to contact him, nor has he allowed himself to resurface. We're trying to get to him before the Captain and his friend do."

The pilot nodded again. "Well, p'raps you'll send the Fox back once you're done with 'er, eh? The boss 'ad been planning on using 'er for another mission, last I 'eard." As he spoke, they reached the back of the copter. The pilot opened the door, allowing Maverick and Lee to climb in.

In the center of the space within the machine was a tall cubical, chained to the helicopter's interior, shelled in black metal, and with a single blue-lit fogged-over window in the top. Maverick went up to the cryo-chamber and rapped his knuckles sharply against the smooth metal surface, then stepped back in satisfaction as nothing happened. Maverick, though mute, had plenty of experience with the Winter Soldier, so knew what to expect with frozen assassins.

Especially deadly ones.

Maverick signed something to Lee, who said, "Unhook the chains and help me get the pod to the door; Maverick here'll get a trolley." As the mute went to do just that, Lee and the pilot unhooked the heavy chains from the bottom and top of the chamber, then somehow maneuvered it to the open door of the helicopter. By the time they had done that, Maverick was there with the trolley waiting for them. He helped get the pod onto the trolley, then positioned himself to push it back to the hangar. The pilot waved and boarded the helicopter once more, and as soon as Lee and Maverick had gotten out of range, the Mi 26 lifted off, flying away.

Leaving Lee and Maverick to wheel the trolley with the cryo-chamber back to the base.

* * *

Sam Wilson sighed and collapsed onto the—surprisingly comfortable—motel-room bed. The past few weeks had been nothing but nonstop _driving. _

And looking out the window.

To _no end _of fields filled alternatively with boring, waving grass, wildflowers (though those were often quite pretty), and taller-than-their-vehicle cornstalks. _Cornstalks._

He groaned as he stretched his stiff arms over his head. "Why are we in Kansas again?"

"Texas, not Kansas. And you know why," answered the blond man who had sat himself on the opposite bad and was neatly unpacking what he would need for tonight from his backpack. Sam saw a change of clothes, a toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant and a pair of red gloves. Leaning against the corner of the bed was a circular, American flag-themed shield, which Sam knew could pack a punch.

"Why do you need the gloves and nothing else from the suit?" Sam asked in confusion.

Steve Rogers looked up. "Because of the magnetics in the gloves. Keeps the shield on track for my arm and not my face when it ricochets back to me." Without another word, he stood, picked up some of the stuff he'd unpacked, and entered the bathroom.

Sam sighed again. Oh, he knew alright.

* * *

_**Well, here you go.**  
_


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey guys, we're back :) I only own the OCs and such, everything else belongs to Stan Lee. And yes, Nicky, you're awesome enough to be in this story o' mine :D Thank you… for your cooperation.**

* * *

Even at eighteen years old, Nicky just _knew _she could be a kick-butt superhero. She could feel it in her bones. Even her teachers said she might have the makings of a hero.

Or… most of her teachers. Natasha just raised an eyebrow and put her to some other extremely hard task. Usually something to do with fire, stake-lined pits and machine guns.

Big ones.

But Nicky didn't mind. She got to train with _Natasha Romanoff,_ the Black Widow, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s greatest assassin and spy. Everything about learning with her was an adventure, to say the least. Plus bruises, sore muscles, headaches, hours of studying, more bruises, more aching muscles… you get the picture.

Even if not all of it was practicing to be kick-butt, some of the politics and strategy lessons were… erm… adventurous, too. Natasha didn't want to be training a trigger-happy lunatic, and Nicky didn't want to _be_ a trigger-happy lunatic. She wanted to be the awesome, hiding-in-the-shadows-until-the-right-moment-to-strike super spy. Like Natasha.

Or, at least, until _stuff _happened. First there was the mess with Stark. Nicky had been disappointed when she couldn't accompany her teacher to be badass. Then, two years later, New York. And _then, _another two years after that, D.C.

Talk about disappointed. More than that, when Cap had announced over the intercom that S.H.I.E.L.D. was basically HYDRA behind a righteous mask, she'd been kinda scared.

Not much, mind. Just a little. But when a friend of your teacher's—both of whom had been recently pronounced traitors—announces that you've been living a lie, it's a bit startling. Plus, with Fury dead and Hawkeye stuck in therapy in New York still, not to mention the other Avengers hanging at their various hangout spots, and all the other 'friends' Nicky had made turning out to be HYDRA goons, she'd had to run.

(She still didn't know if the two guys she had taken out were alive or not. With Natasha's training… she was guessing _not_. Extremely not.)

So now, Nicky Parson, a blonde barely out of her teens but with more fighting talent than most men in the boxing ring, was waiting where she knew Natasha would eventually show up. Hopefully.

* * *

After Lee and Maverick maneuvered the cryo-chamber into the van they'd had waiting, Lee climbed into the driver's seat and, as soon as Maverick let him know that he and the cubical were strapped in, took off for HQ.

The road was long, winding and bumpy with ruts and knots of grass, and at night hard to see, leaving Lee cursing the van and the middle-of-nowhere HYDRA headquarters with every jerk of the vehicle. They had precious cargo, for pity's sake! Not that anyone cared, really, but if the mission that the boss put the Fox up to failed because of damage caused by a bad road, the blame would be pinned to Lee. He knew where he stood in the chain of command, and he wasn't exactly important. Easily expendable. And _definitely _not going to be grieved over.

After an hour of driving, a shadowy building loomed out of the gloom. It looked like and used to be a military covert bunker, but appeared to be crumbling on the outside. But Lee knew that on the inside was a cleverly hidden garage and an elevator leading down several hundred feet below the surface, where the Fox would be taken to a special room designed especially for highly dangerous cryofrozen assassins coming out of the frost: so deep underground it had taken years to build, with reinforced vibranium-adamantium alloy walls and a six-foot-thick door made from the same material. The glass partition that allowed the people in the small viewing room to observe the proceedings was several feet thick, and too narrow for a human to crawl through, and the door to both the viewing room and the thawing room was specially designed to only open at voice command from the commanding officers of HYDRA. Down the hall was the room where assassins would be taken to have their minds wiped. The same set of rooms was hidden deep below almost every major HYDRA base, and one or two minor ones as well, but this had been the first to be built in the middle of America.

The van pulled up to the door of the warehouse, and Lee got out to deal with the lone guard patrolling the building. The burly man eyed Lee suspiciously, but once he'd said the codeword, let him in.

* * *

"Ow."

"What?"

"We're walking through a—OW!—cactus patch. What do you _think?_"

Steve turned, faintly amused to see Sam picking his way through the spiky, flat green desert plants. "They're not that bad, Wilson."

Sam snorted. "Not to you, maybe, but I'm not a freaking super-soldier. Perfectly normal human being over here getting speared to death by murderous plants," he drawled. "Why are we in the middle of the desert again?"

Steve chuckled at his companion's antics, turning back and forging ahead. "Those guys at the gas station saw him come through here. We need to track him down, and if we can figure out some sort of pattern to where and how he spends his days and nights, we'll be that much closer to catching him."

The other man frowned. "What if we're not the only ones doing that?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I don't trust HYDRA to stay down. They probably have hundreds of bases all over the world. We may have destroyed their main HQ, but what about the rest? Surely they've got other facilities, maybe even other brainwashed assassins like the Soldier. They could be tracking both us _and _him, waiting to snatch either one or all of us." He shook his head. "I honestly can't see them just giving up their greatest weapon."

Steve stopped and swore. "Damn… I never thought of that. But that just makes finding Bucky all the more important." He sighed. "Wish we'd brought Natasha. She'd have found him by now."

"Maybe. And then she might have decided to take her revenge for whatever the Soldier did to piss her off."

"True. Probably best we didn't bring her."

"Probably, huh?"

Steve grinned at the other man, then continued forward, seeming to Sam to simply bulldoze through the spiky green pads. The Falcon sighed as he followed, muttering curses under his breath every time a cactus spine poked through his jeans. If HYDRA didn't get them, these damned plants certainly would!

**Well, that's it for now. See ya!**


	3. Chapter 3

** Hehe. Wondered when I'd get to write this. If you want disclaimers, see chapters one and two, but I have a new one here: I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE BOURNE SERIES.**

* * *

_"Bucky, wait up!"_

_He stopped and turned. Behind him, a stick-limbed blond boy was running to catch up with him, followed closely by a girl in a blue frock slightly taller than the boy, with rich dark brown hair held in place with a white headband. _

_He felt himself grin as they caught up. "Hey Steve, Freckle Fox."_

_The girl wrinkled her flecked nose at him, but laughter danced in her bright blue eyes. "Where you headed, Buck?" she asked, tilting her head curiously and putting a hand on her hip. _

_He shrugged. "Dunno. The bridge, maybe."_

_"I'll come with you!" Steve exclaimed. "We haven't been down there together in ages."_

_He felt himself raise an eyebrow at the girl. "What about you, Freckle Fox? When's your family putting supper on the table?" He could feel himself trying to keep a jealous note out of his voice. _

_The girl snorted. "Dad's putting down bowls of potato soup that is mostly water on the table about an hour after the sun sets," she said. "You're both invited."_

_"I don't take charity," he said immediately._

_"It's not. He's being nice."_

_He hesitated. Steve looked at him. "C'mon, Buck, it's not every day we're invited to a dinner that isn't just boiled cabbage. You're too proud, y'know?" The smaller boy elbowed the bigger's left arm—the left arm that wasn't yet metal, but flesh and blood and bone. _

_He sighed. "Alright. Just this once!"_

_She laughed. "That's what you…"_

The dream ended before she finished her sentence. The man who was once known as the Winter Soldier groaned slightly, shying away from the light that filtered through the patchy ceiling of the warehouse. It was hot. Too hot. The metal that had replaced his left arm was steaming in the rays of sunlight that filtered through, and he felt the heat through the glove on his right hand. It was also reflecting the light, creating a flashing gleam that leapt around the interior of the building when he moved the arm.

He sighed and moved himself to a more shaded spot. It was slightly cooler, but still far too warm.

_Better than being frozen, _said a tiny voice in the back of his mind. He jumped. That had been happening far more often. Ever since That Day. Little voices would make themselves heard in his head without his permission or necessity. Sometimes they sounded like his own, others… other times it was in Rogers' voice, and, occasionally, in the voice of a girl or young woman. The same girl from his dream. Often, her mental voice provided advantageous or constructive advice, but usually so layered with sarcasm he could barely figure it out.

But he couldn't remember her name, other than 'Freckle Fox.' The few dreams he had that weren't nightmares were too short, and no one ever said her real name.

He wanted to know what it was. No… he _needed _to know. And there was only one person that he knew of who he could ask.

* * *

_Pizza… boba milkshakes… bouncing bunnies… _

"Nicky?"

_Endless hours of watching Bourne…_

"Nicky!"

_An irritated redhead glaring at her…_

Oh wait…

"Natasha?" she mumbled sleepily.

"_Get. Up._"

Startled by the harsh tone, Nicky shot up—and then proceeded to make a spectacular show of flailing legs and arms as she fell off the couch, barely missing the coffee table. She heard Natasha sigh tiredly. "Remind me why I agreed to let Fury assign you to me."

Nicky got up, irritatedly pushing strands of curly blond hair away from her face. "Because you needed a punching back that could fight back. Not to mention my charming demeanor and witty humor."

The Black Widow snorted. "Yeah, that was _definitely _it," she drawled sarcastically. Nicky gave her a hurt look, which she ignored. "Did you leave any food in the fridge? We'll be moving to New York soon, and I don't want to have to buy supplies."

"There's a whole steak in the fridge that I left alone because I know that's your favorite, and a bunch of vegetables. There's energy bars in the pantry, too." Nicky eyed her curiously as Natasha entered the kitchen. "Why are we going to New York?"

Without looking back, Natasha replied, "We're meeting Hawkeye in another safe house—apparently his therapist was the enemy, so now he's in hiding. We're going to discuss whether or not to move in with Stark."

Nicky made a face. "Why would you consider it in the first place? The guy's insane."

"Because he's offered to house all of the Avengers—including Thor, when he visits—once the Tower is finished with repairs. Banner has already taken him up on that, and somehow Stark sent a message to Rogers, but he's not sure that the Captain got it, because he hasn't replied. Steve and Sam are still looking for the Winter Soldier, so even if they _do_ accept Tony's offer, it could be months—or even years—before they actually move in." She scowled. "The Soldier is not an easy man to find when he isn't trying. When he _is_ trying, it's impossible."

Nicky frowned. "And you're not going to help them?"

"Not until they ask me to."

* * *

Lee yawned. Waiting outside a six-foot-thick adamantium-vibranium alloy door that sheltered a highly dangerous assassin who would most likely kill anyone who got in her way if she tried to escape was surprisingly boring, despite the perilousness. On the other side of the door, a burly guard raised an eyebrow.

"What? I'm bored," Lee protested.

The guard shook his head and stared at the far wall. Lee couldn't suppress another yawn, sleepily staring at the wall himself.

He jumped to attention as the door suddenly opened, and six heavily armed guards walked out, walking in a circle around a woman with dark, colorless hair and piercing, ice-blue eyes. She was wearing a dark jumpsuit that definitely was not intended for the field, but probably made from a thermal mesh—the kind of material HYDRA used for recently unfrozen assassins—and a black mask covered the lower half of her face. The Fox. Behind her and the guards came Maverick and a man Lee didn't know.

Lee caught the burly guard eyeing the Fox's figure appreciatively, and mentally berated the man for his stupidity. That woman could kill him with a napkin if she wanted to!

**I am sorry it's as short as it is. But please, if you liked it, leave a review :)**


	4. Chapter 4

**I can't do chapters without an author's note. So. Yeah. I'm nice like that.**

**Ooh, guest review!**

***looks at your name* Agent Parsons, eh? XD Anyways, yes. There will be more Nicky. Lots more. :D Thanks for reviewing.**

* * *

"Что ваше имя?"

"Я черный Fox."

"Что ваша цель?"

A pause. "Я имущество ГИДРЫ большое."

"All is in order. Send her to the commanders."

The guards positioned around the Fox and the two men with her stepped forward and surrounded the Fox in a circle of muscle. The woman's gaze flicked over them with an icy, frightening speed and even more frightening indifference. She killed on HYDRA's orders, but if she decided HYDRA's orders were not to be followed, they would very quickly be destroyed. The Fox was known for executing the first few steps toward HYDRA's infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D. The death of Howard Stark, for example, was no accident. Many of HYDRA's low-level agents thought that the Winter Soldier had been the one to kill one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s founders, but in truth, the Soldier had still been in cryo. It was the Fox who had undertaken that particular mission, and many others that most didn't know about save for HYDRA's chain of command.

And no one—not even HYDRA's late leader, Pierce—knew who she really was.

* * *

Nicky yawned, bored. "Can we turn on some music?"

Natasha sighed, rolling her eyes. "No. Just like the last fifteen times you've asked."

"But what's a long car drive without _music_?"

"Peaceful."

The blonde snorted. Yeah, it was peaceful alright. Peaceful, quiet and _boooor-riiiiing. _They were driving all the way from D.C. to New York, and though Nicky had done it before in a day and still gotten to the destination on time to watch most of the Bourne movies, it was a long, boring car ride. Extremely boring. And this highway _never _had any bad guys.

"You had better not be jinxing us with thoughts about no bad guys, Nicky," Natasha warned.

Nicky stared at her. "How did you know what I was thinking?!"

"It was written all over your face. You never hide it."

"Like you hide everything behind a mask?"

"Why do you think I was S.H.I.E.L.D.'s best spy?" Natasha gave a triumphant smirk at Nicky's bout of grumbling and sinking lower into her seat, pouting slightly. If only she could _fight _something. It'd loosen up her stiff muscles and make the world a little less boring. Or a lot less boring, even. A news truck might even pull by and see her awesome fighting skills and spread the word that there was a new hero in town, maybe even give her an awesome superhero name. Underneath a long-sleeved red shirt, black leather jacket and black jeans, she wore the white catsuit Natasha had given her in her second year of training. Maybe they'd call her the White Shadow. Or something.

Anything awesome and epic was good, really.

* * *

"Dude… you are becoming extremely obsessed," Sam stated as Steve paced in front of him, muttering under his breath.

The super-soldier turned. "Yeah, because he was sighted in _Colorado, _twenty minutes ago, just across the border, barely seven miles from where we are! That's closer than we've ever gotten! And we're _iced in! _Forgive me if I become a little stir-crazy from wanting to run out there and find him, because we've been searching for months now!"

"Three months."

"Still counts," Steve snapped irritably.

"I will remember that." Sam gave him an irked look. "Listen, man, I know he's your best friend and all, he's your Riley, but dude! We're iced in, but as soon as the sky clears somewhat and the road doesn't look like Alaska, we're outta here. Way outta here. I'm still confused as to why we came _over _the mountain and not around it."

"It was supposed to be faster."

"Well, it's not. Let's make a deal—no more going _over _the mountains if we can, and as soon as we manage to convince Bucky to come with us, you let me help in kicking HYDRA out of his head. He's got demons, big ones with hellfire and rage. We don't know exactly what they are, but if he's running from us, maybe he thinks you're one of them." Sam sighed exasperatedly at Steve's frown. "He might remember you, but not entirely, and that might make him think you caused all of this!"

Steve grunted. "I did, though."

Sam nearly smacked himself. "Ugh. Steve. If you start blaming yourself, you'll get depressed. I do _not _want a depressed super-soldier on my hands!"

Steve looked at him in surprise. "A friend of mine once said that… almost those exact words."

"Oh really? Who?"

* * *

The door wasn't moving.

Were they late?

No, Tasha was never late.

But why weren't they here? Had whatever remained of HYDRA gotten them? Were they even now torturing them to the brink of insanity? Clint liked Tasha's protégé. The boisterous blonde was a cheerful streak that contrasted starkly against Tasha's cold ferocity of a shield. He had to admit, his partner was more often then not scary as hell. The fact that Nicky hadn't been really bothered by it in the first place and had actually taken it as humor showed that either she understood that that was actually what it was, or she simply didn't care.

Plus, she'd treated Clint like a brother when they'd first been introduced. Natasha had often enlisted him to help when Nicky had difficulty executing a move _exactly _how the Widow needed it to be executed. Pun not intended, because most of them were deadly. Then she had helped him after New York, making sure the other S.H.I.E.L.D. juveniles weren't crowding him and asking loads of questions he didn't want to answer.

And then there was Tasha. If HYDRA or someone else somehow got their hands on her… he had no idea what he'd do.

The digital clock hanging on one wall read 6:17. They were supposed to be here at six. And Natasha was never late. Ever. _Ever. _Until now, apparently.

Suddenly, the door to the shabby three-room house opened with a soft _creeeeeeaakkk _as someone stepped through. Two someones, actually. One with red hair, the other with blonde. Clint stood from where he'd been reclined on the couch next to his bow. "Hey Tasha," he called. "You're late."

Natasha raised an eyebrow. "It's five forty-five." She looked at the clock on the wall. "That says A.M. It's behind."

Clint looked at the clock—which, indeed, said 6:18 A.M.—and back to Natasha. Nicky stood behind her, quite obviously struggling to contain her laughter. He glared at her. Apparently that was too much for her, because she then broke into muffled snorts of laughter behind her hand.

"Traitor," he growled, stalking into the kitchen. Nicky finally laughed out loud, bending down to put her hands on her knees.

* * *

**…that's it for now. Please review :D**

**FF**


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